Goonhub
04-16-2020, 01:51 PM
Here's the problem with banning politics: Absolutely nobody agrees on what 'politics' as a subject is. Me, it's 'politics' if it deals with some form of government. If you're not talking about how a group of people or a region is or should be governed, it's not politics. For a lot of others, it's 'politics' if you're talking about whether or not some areas have enough healthcare access; for others, the bullshit that QUILTBAG folks have to deal with in a basic day in life is 'politics'; for others, discussing the prevalence of antisemitism in our culture is 'politics'; etc etc ad nauseum.
There's also the issue that if you tell people to stop talking about a given topic, that is inherently a political act. There's also also the issue that if you tell folks to stop talking about a given topic, there's a pretty good chance you'll find them trying to find exactly where the line is, trying to figure out exactly how close they can get to it without tripping over it, using allusions or coded language to talk about it while maintaining plausible deniability that they're not, so on and so forth.
Banning political chat is a nonstarter because there's no consensus on what exactly you're banning, you'll end up inviting more of what you're sick of, and the hypocritical act of essentially saying 'nobody's allowed to hit people with sticks, and if you break this rule, i'll hit you with a stick, because it's okay if i do it but not you'.
There's also the issue that if you tell people to stop talking about a given topic, that is inherently a political act. There's also also the issue that if you tell folks to stop talking about a given topic, there's a pretty good chance you'll find them trying to find exactly where the line is, trying to figure out exactly how close they can get to it without tripping over it, using allusions or coded language to talk about it while maintaining plausible deniability that they're not, so on and so forth.
Banning political chat is a nonstarter because there's no consensus on what exactly you're banning, you'll end up inviting more of what you're sick of, and the hypocritical act of essentially saying 'nobody's allowed to hit people with sticks, and if you break this rule, i'll hit you with a stick, because it's okay if i do it but not you'.